PSY 233 Lecture 2: Psych- Lecture 2
Document Summary
In research, the term reliability means consistency or stability of a measure: if you measure the same thing many times, you should get the same results every time, thus psychological measures need to be consistent (stable) Types of reliability: test-retest, inter-rather or inter-observer, parallel forms, internal consistency. How well scale items covert with one another. Validity is the quality of measuring what one is supposed to measure. Does a measure predict performance or success on some relevant criterion: content. Does a measure (dv) provide a direct and representative picture of the variable being studied: construct. A scientific theory has two broad functions: a synthesizing function and a heuristic function. A scientific construct is an abstraction used to explain something. It is imaginary or hypothetical: operational definition. Popper"s principle of falsifiability: risky predictions (looking for counter-evidence) Kuhn"s view of paradigm: paradigm: a viewpoint shared by many scientists, normal science, paradigm shift, science revolutions occur in spurts.
